You will do the projects in teams of two students. Both students in a team will receive the same grade. Team partners are expected to fully collaborate with each other on solving the project. However, communication about project details with somebody other than your partner is not permitted, and is considered cheating. Your project submissions--including all programming code--should be your own team's work. Anyone found submitting another person's work will be dealt with under the Computer Science Department's procedures regarding academic honesty (see below). You should clearly document in your submission any external code libraries not developed by you that you use in your projects. If in doubt about what libraries are acceptable, please contact the class staff to clarify. You are not allowed to use any code at all from other students, even for parts of the projects that you might consider as "not essential." Again, your project submissions should be fully your own team's work, with the exception of documented external libraries that you clearly disclose in your submission.
If in doubt about what kinds of collaborations or consultations are allowed, please check with the instructor immediately. Please see the policies and procedures regarding academic honesty (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/education/honesty) for further details.
Projects submitted after the exact time when they are due are considered late. Late projects will not be accepted unless there is a valid medical or family condition with appropriate documentation submitted to the instructor. However, you have three grace days for projects, for emergencies and for those times during the semester where you need a little more time. Weekends and university holidays are not counted.
Grace days apply in whole: if you submit a project due on Tuesday at 1:10 p.m. ET at, say, 5 p.m. ET that day, this means you have used one grace day. (There is no such thing as "a fraction of a grace day.")
For example, if a project is due on Thursday at 1:10 p.m. ET, you can submit the project by Friday at 1:10 p.m. ET using one grace day, by Monday at 1:10 p.m. ET using two grace days, or by Tuesday at 1:10 p.m. ET using three grace days.
How you use your grace days is up to you; however, we strongly suggest you save these grace days for the end of the semester, when you might need them the most.
After you have used all your project grace days, you can still submit your project but your grade will be reduced drastically with each day that you are late. Specifically, if you don't have any grace days left and you submit your project one day late, we will reduce your project grade by 25%; if you submit your project two days late, we will reduce your project grade by 50%; finally, if you submit your project three days late, we will reduce your project grade by 75%.
Important note on teams: To use a late day for a project, both team partners must have a project grace day available each, and they will both be deducted one project grace day each. If you change team partners and your new partner does not have any project grace days left, then unfortunately you will not be able to use any grace days for the project.
If you have any questions about any of the above policies, please either post it to the class discussion board or contact an IA or the professor.